Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Phone by Google wants to combat the "growing threat of impersonation scams" and protect Android users against "sophisticated, AI-powered deepfake attacks" with fake call detection. [...] Fake call detection requires that both parties are on Android and use the Phone by Google app, while Google Messages and Google Contacts also have to be installed. When a contact calls, their phone "sends a silent confirmation signal in real time to your device to verify the call is legitimate and truly coming from the contact's device."

This digital handshake uses end-to-end encrypted RCS (Rich Communication Services). If you're being scammed by an impersonator, your phone will notice that the "initial confirmation signal will be missing," and ping the contact's real device to double-check. If their real device says, "I'm not making a call right now," you'll get a warning on your screen advising you to hang up immediately. This feature will be available globally on Android 12+ phones starting with Pixel devices this month. Fake call detection is enabled by default but can be turned off at any time. Google says itâ(TM)s "possible for other apps and device manufacturers to adopt this technology" given the RCS underpinnings. You can learn more about fake call detection in Google's blog post.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Een jaar geleden reisde ik van Beijing naar Xi'an met een van de indrukwekkende Chinese hogesnelheidstreinen. In een comfortabele coupé legde ik een afstand van 1.216 kilometer af in slechts 4 uur en 10 minuten. Dat is vergelijkbaar met de afstand tussen Amsterdam en Warschau, terwijl je daar al snel zo'n twaalf uur over doet. Of vergelijk het met een reis tussen Groningen en Goes: ongeveer dezelfde reistijd, maar daar bedraagt de afstand slechts 350 kilometer. Op veel plekken werken we nog altijd met een systeem dat in belangrijke mate is gebaseerd op infrastructuur uit een andere tijd. Het zette mij aan het denken.

De les van die treinreis ging natuurlijk niet over treinen. Ze ging over bestuur en de mogelijkheid om vooruit te gaan als samenleving. Over het vermogen van een land om een visie te ontwikkelen, grote keuzes te maken, die vervolgens ook daadwerkelijk uit te voeren en het land beter door te geven aan de volgende generaties. Juist daar wringt het in Nederland steeds vaker. We zijn steeds minder in staat om grote vraagstukken daadwerkelijk op te lossen. Of het nu gaat om het bouwen van woningen, het oplossen van de asielcrisis, voldoende drinkwatervoorzieningen, het tegengaan van netcongestie en ga zo maar door: vrijwel overal zien we dezelfde patronen terug. Besluiten duren jaren, verantwoordelijkheden zijn versnipperd en politieke aandacht verschuift voortdurend van incident naar incident, van relletje naar relletje en van spoeddebat naar spoeddebat. Het laat zien dat ons politieke systeem onvoldoende is toegerust om de uitdagingen van deze tijd aan te kunnen. Wanneer hebben we in Nederland voor het laatst durven dromen van de grote projecten die nodig zijn om het land vooruit te krijgen?

Als we vervolgens naar de landelijke politiek kijken, dan is er niet alleen sprake van politieke onrust, maar van een systeemcrisis. Voor wie dat wil ontkennen, zijn er een paar eenvoudige vragen. Wanneer heeft er voor het laatst een ingrijpende politieke hervorming plaatsgevonden? Waarom moet er een kabinet worden gevormd door partijen die samen geen meerderheid van de kiezers vertegenwoordigen? Waarom lijkt de Tweede Kamer zich vooral bezig te houden met incidentenpolitiek? Welke rechtse partij kan, 25 jaar na Fortuyn, qua organisatiekracht zich meten aan PRO, D66 en de VVD?

We kunnen moeilijk anders concluderen dan dat er sprake is van een politieke systeemcrisis. Een politiek systeem dat is ontworpen voor de verzuilde samenleving van de twintigste eeuw sluit steeds minder goed aan bij de geatomiseerde en geïndividualiseerde samenleving van 2026. 

Al zes jaar kijken we naar kabinetten die onvoldoende doorzettingskracht hebben om noodzakelijke hervormingen door te voeren. We zien zwakke politieke organisaties die draaien om een handvol mensen, een Tweede Kamer die haar prioriteiten niet altijd op orde heeft, een zittingsduur van vier jaar die vaak te kort blijkt om fundamentele veranderingen in gang te zetten en een versnipperd parlement waarin kleine partijen met enkele zetels nauwelijks in staat zijn hun controlerende taak goed uit te voeren.

Dat zou voldoende reden moeten zijn om serieus na te denken over een grondige modernisering van ons politieke stelsel. Een hogere kiesdrempel zou de versnippering kunnen terugdringen en de vorming van stabielere meerderheden vergemakkelijken. Het verplicht democratiseren van politieke partijen zou (rechtse) partijen dwingen te werken aan hun partijkader en organisatievermogen. Daarnaast zou een zittingsduur van zes jaar voor de Tweede Kamer kabinetten en Kamerleden meer ruimte geven om hervormingen daadwerkelijk door te voeren in plaats van voortdurend te regeren met de volgende verkiezingen in het achterhoofd.

Maar ook de rechtse kiezer ontkomt niet aan zelfkritiek. In de 28 jaar dat ik hier in Nederland rondloop stemt een groot deel van Nederland op partijen die zeggen verandering te willen, maar er niet in slagen sterke politieke organisaties op te bouwen. De PVV heeft nooit serieus geïnvesteerd in partijopbouw en kadervorming, en is daarmee een electorale eenmanszaak. BBB lijkt nog altijd zoekende naar haar identiteit. Forum voor Democratie is verworden tot een schim van wat het ooit pretendeerde te zijn en inmiddels verworden tot een geldmachine voor de partijtop. JA21 worstelt met haar positionering. En inmiddels dient de volgende afsplitsing zich alweer aan in de vorm van DNA.

Het gevolg is dat rechts regelmatig verkiezingen wint, maar zelden de institutionele kracht ontwikkelt om langdurig richting te geven aan het land en verzandt in politieke amateurisme. Daarmee wordt iedere verkiezing opnieuw een strijd tussen onvrede en teleurstelling, zonder dat er een helder alternatief ontstaat. Dat heeft geleid tot het grote wantrouwen dat veel Nederlanders tegenwoordig hebben in de landelijke politiek.

Social

Misschien nog belangrijker is dat de rechterflank nauwelijks werk heeft gemaakt van een langetermijnvisie voor Nederland. Tegen asielmigratie, tegen doorgeschoten stikstofbeleid, tegen onrealistische klimaatdoelen en tegen woningbouwbeperkingen zijn, is nog geen toekomstvisie. Dat zijn standpunten, geen bestemming. Hier ligt de basis voor het feit dat elk politiek experiment mislukt en we laten hier rechtse politici te makkelijk mee wegkomen. Het verloop van het kabinet-Schoof is daarbij het meest heldere voorbeeld. Voor het eerst in jaren kreeg de rechterflank de kans om haar ideeën om te zetten in bestuur. Maar in plaats van een breed toekomstverhaal, een sterke organisatie en een duidelijke hervormingsagenda zagen we opnieuw verdeeldheid, improvisatie, gepruts en een voortdurende focus op de politieke actualiteit van de dag.

Als jonge rechts stemmende kiezer vraag ik mij steeds vaker af: wat is het grote rechtse project voor de komende dertig jaar? Wat is het hedendaagse Nederlandse equivalent van de Deltawerken, de Zuiderzeewerken of de aanleg van onze nationale infrastructuur waar wij mee aan de slag willen? Wat is het positieve project dat Nederland sterker, rijker of veiliger maakt? Waar willen we als land naartoe, waar geloven we in en welke keuzes horen daarbij?

De generaties voor ons bouwden de Zuiderzeewerken, de Deltawerken, Schiphol, de Rotterdamse haven en het Nederlandse gasnetwerk. Zolang rechts vooral reageert op de plannen van anderen, zal het initiatief bij links en het politieke midden blijven liggen. Wie een land wil veranderen, moet meer bieden dan kritiek alleen. Die moet ook een overtuigend verhaal hebben over de toekomst en daar vanaf vandaag aan gaan werken.

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60 

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60 

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60 

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60 

[Even checken of Pieter Waterdrinker nog leeft, red.]

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60 

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60 

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60 

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60

Twan Huys op 1 in de Bestseller 60

In Slow Burn, Shawn Huckins puts the cognitive dissonance that defines our current era in stark relief. The New Hampshire-based painter has long challenged American mythology and collective aggrandizing by reinterpreting canonical artworks and visual languages. His series have commented on the U.S.’s proclivity for erasing history and the ways our garments convey social status and class. In this new body of work, he directs us to the contradictory experience of witnessing destruction as both a spectacle and a distant occurrence.

Slow Burn presents a suite of landscapes, each veiled by curtains. Floral drapery flanks a catastrophic explosion, a sliver of sunlight peeks through a decorative toile de jouy pattern, and delicate lace veils a wildfire in the distance. Opened just enough to allow a partial glimpse, the curtains suggest a theatrical scene in which the raging disasters of war and the climate crisis are ongoing.

In contrast to the 19th-century landscapes synonymous with the Hudson River School, Huckins stages scenes in which romanticism and idealized vistas are long gone. While the viewer peers outward from the safety of a home, the fires and bombs that characterize the outside world inch closer, and the complacency, privilege, and pure luck that have provided protection thus far are ever more precarious.

Slow Burn runs from July 11 to August 22 at K Contemporary in Denver. Until then, find more from the artist on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Wildfires and War Rage in Shawn Huckins’ Theatrical Paintings appeared first on Colossal.

Pink Floyd

Coil

Misschien komt het door zijn „moeizame karakter” dat vakbondsleider Hans Spekman nog niet tevreden is, zegt hij.

West bracht onder meer een nummer uit met de titel Heil Hitler. Het Centraal Joods Overleg (CJO) wilde dat zijn optreden via de rechter werd geannuleerd.

Vonden het OMT en de top van het ministerie van VWS, en dus ook het kabinet, de bewoners en de verzorgenden in verpleeghuizen minder belangrijk dan patiënten en personeel in de…

Het netwerk van 900 sensoren kostte de Amerikaanse belastingbetaler 40 miljoen dollar per jaar en leverde een schat van informatie op. Nu de regering-Trump de stekker eruit trekt, kondigt de EU juist aan meer in oceaanonderzoek te gaan investeren.

sz-da has added a photo to the pool:

Goro Sky Tower (五老スカイタワー)

Move over, Copilot: Microsoft is introducing a new category of agentic AI called "Autopilot," starting with Scout, its first agent. And it doesn't take much guessing to understand how Microsoft expects these things to operate: By constantly watching your every move and taking action in the background to ostensibly streamline your workday. Microsoft announced Autopilot, and the first Autopilot agent, Scout, at Microsoft Build on Tuesday, describing it and other future Autopilots as “always-on agents that work autonomously,” stay active in the background to “understand how work gets done across your apps and systems,” and can “take action without needing to be prompted each time.” Scout, for example, can be interacted with in Teams when one feels the need, but outside of instances when users need to query it directly, it’s always there. “It operates across cloud, desktop, and web, connecting to Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint, and to the data that powers your day, including chats, email, calendar, and contacts,” Omar Shahine, corporate VP of Microsoft Scout, wrote in the announcement. Autopilot agents supposedly have their own identities, according to Shahine, and are able to act autonomously within the constraints organizations set on their activities (access controls can be set by organizations). Per Shahine, letting Autopilots operate on autopilot “creates a more durable way to keep work in motion so it continues even when your attention is elsewhere.” Say, for example, you need to schedule a meeting: Scout can handle scheduling on its own while accounting for time zones; it can flag meetings it considers particularly important for its users and generate materials it believes users need to prepare before the scheduled time. Scout can also identify looming deadlines and block off time on a user’s calendar so that they can work on a particular project, “spot risks, like stalled decisions,” and basically act like a work nanny that schedules your day by being hyper-aware of every single little thing that needs to get done. Hopefully, your new Microsoft nannybot is more reliable than its Copilot predecessor, whose outputs Microsoft itself warns may not always be accurate. Get ready for a Claw-shaped hole in your environment “Microsoft Scout is built with enterprise-grade security and controls so it can be trusted in your organization from day one,” Shahine noted in the release, followed immediately by noting that it’s powered by OpenClaw, not exactly a platform with a stellar security reputation or record of not making bad decisions on behalf of users. Microsoft claims that Scout and whatever future Autopilot agents it releases are bound to an Entra identity that allows their activity within an enterprise environment to be attributed to a particular person’s Scout agent, and notes that it acts within the confines of access controls set by the organization, but it’s not clear what other protections against common AI exploits are included. As we’ve noted before, it's often surprisingly easy to manipulate AI agents into behaving in ways their operators never intended, and malicious webpages can inject prompts that trick them into leaking sensitive information; in both cases, those sorts of attacks can be launched without any direct user interaction. We asked Microsoft for more details on the security aspect of Autopilots and Scout, but didn’t hear back before the deadline. It’s also worth noting that Microsoft Scout is in very limited access, with only a “select group of customers” getting access to the preview, along with organizations participating in the Frontier program, which grants them early access to Copilot and other Microsoft AI features. One more caveat, too: Frontier enrollees can only get access to the Scout preview if they’re GitHub Copilot subscribers. GitHub Copilot recently shifted to a usage-based billing model that has seen bills skyrocket, so expect those Microsoft bills to rise if you choose to give it a shot, too. ®

Intel is keen to reassure investors that its troubles with the 18A manufacturing process were a one-off, and that it is better positioned to capitalize on what it expects will be growing demand for CPUs used in AI inference workloads. Speaking at the Bank of America 2026 Global Technology Conference in San Francisco, Chipzilla’s chief financial officer David Zinsner claimed that the firm simply bit off more than it could chew in trying to move too fast with the new process node. “I would say it this way, I don't know, early last year, I think the challenge around 18A was two things. One, we tried to do too much at once. And it took a while to get that settled. And I think second is, we were trying to play performance and yield and trying to improve both at the same time. It was like trying to fly the plane and fix the wing at the same time, basically,” he said. Intel 18A - its angstrom-era process, marketed as a 1.8 nm-class node - was initially expected to be production-ready by late 2024 and ramp toward volume manufacturing in 2025. However, the technology ran into delays, with the first products built on 18A not arriving until Intel unveiled its Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs back in January this year. Zinsner said that after Pat Gelsinger's departure, when he and Michelle Johnston Holthaus took over as interim co-CEOs, he put Intel global operations chief Naga Chandrasekaran on the case, “and then they really just focused on first, stabilizing performance. And so they stabilize performance. Then once you've got your performance stabilized, then all you do is you work yield every month,” he explained. “The second thing that we did when Lip-Bu joined is we really opened up our data to our vendors to really help us learn things that we could do to improve yield and that made a dramatic difference,” Zinsner added. This meant overcoming some cultural resistance to sharing data, he claimed, but then “Once we fixed that, we really started to get some feedback into what we could do to improve. And then it was just our team just grinding it out every month.” Intel’s goal is now to get to yields that generate great margins, and the firm is now ahead of its schedule to get there by the end of 2027, he claimed. And when it comes to the next-generation 14A process, the one that Intel hopes will allow it to set up its foundry division as a contract manufacturing business as well as making its own chips, Zinsner was keen to stress that the program remains on track. “Now I would just say we have a more aggressive plan for 14A than 18A. When you look at kind of yield and performance measures at this point in time and maturity of 14A compared to that same moment in time for 18A, we're ahead,” he claimed. “All the stuff that I said that we bit off more than we can chew on 18A, and it really took some time. Now it's just a little bit of a rinse and repeat. I mean it will be a lot easier to do 14A because it's just using a lot of the gate-all-around and backside power and so forth that we implemented in 18A,” Zinsner explained. As Intel chief Lip-Bu Tan explained a couple of weeks ago, the firm is now anticipating increasing demand for CPUs as the focus of the AI craze turns from training to inferencing work. Zinsner said that it is hard to judge exactly how big the growth in CPU demand would get, but “I think it's going to be a big market.” “If you just stamped something and called it a CPU right now, it probably would sell. So in the near term, it's all about supply,” he claimed. “I mean we've got enough demand out there that if we can do a good job executing on the ramping of supply, we should have no issue with growing our revenue meaningfully in the datacenter space,” he added. Zinsner also said that Intel was looking to draw up more long-term agreements with customers in the future. “So we're locking in a price, for sure. We're locking in a volume commitment. And then that enables us to do a better job of planning out our capacity and making sure when we're investing in capacity, we're going to see customers take that supply when it comes off the line,” he said. Intel this week unveiled its Clearwater Forest Xeon chips, along with more details of its upcoming Diamond Rapids Xeons, at the Computex trade show in Taiwan. ®

A body that represents mobile operators wants the migration to 6G networks to be as smooth as possible, learning lessons from the fractious 5G introduction that has left countries like the UK with a less than satisfactory service. The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) says that 6G requires a different standardization approach in order to prevent complexity and market confusion, alongside a smooth and cost-effective migration path for its members. What exactly defines 6G is still being thrashed out, but it is expected to be ready by the end of the decade. According to telecoms supplier Ericsson, 6G networks are likely to offer data rates of several hundred gigabits per second (Gbps) with sub-millisecond (ms) end-to-end latency, and usher in new use cases. But NGMN sees it as an opportunity to simplify network architectures, reduce long‑term costs and operational complexity, and ensure a smooth and scalable migration path. As it points out, deploying a new technology requires significant investment, and this needs to be justified by confidence it will deliver a sustainable return for the operators. The org has pushed out two reports ahead of a plenary meeting of the 3GPP standards consortium in Singapore this month. One looks at 6G architecture and migration options, while the other considers the timing of 6G’s introduction from an operator’s perspective. What the NGMN wants to see is consensus on a primary approach to 6G migration and reduction in complexity across user equipment (UE), the radio access network (RAN) and core networks. It also wants to see the required 6G specifications, including those for RAN and core network, delivered in a single drop of 3GPP Release 21 rather than pushed out piecemeal. This is to enable operators to perform a complete network rollout without multiple phases that result in unnecessary complexity and market confusion, it says. In its first document, the NGMN advocates for the use of Multi-RAT Spectrum sharing (MRSS) as a migration option, where RAT means radio access technology. This enables the simultaneous use of the same frequency band by more than one generation of cellular network, such as 5G and 6G. This will 6G with flexible access to 5G spectrum so that “competitive user throughput and performance” can be achieved, even in locations where a large amount of new spectrum (e.g. spectrum around 7 GHz) is unavailable or too costly to deploy, it claims. However, the 3GPP should give also consideration to alternatives such as Dual Connectivity and Dual Stack, in case MRSS is found to significantly reduce 5G performance or increase network costs. As for the operators’ expectations of 6G, the second document says that a key motivation is to evolve network core technology to deliver greater operational efficiency. This extends to more efficient use of new spectrum bands (6-7 GHz considered possible), network automation, AI as a service, energy efficiency, and delivering ubiquitous coverage. The value to end users and the cost of network deployment are driven for a significant part by the design choices made in standardization, and this is why a single drop of specifications is key. With 5G, the full promise of the technology could not be delivered with initial deployments, and multiple rollouts and device generations have been needed. In the UK, for example, network operators were forced to bolt 5G radios onto the existing infrastructure built for 4G, which meant early users did not perceive much improvement in service, as The Register wrote last year. This led to the impression that it wasn't worth paying extra for, which sapped the networks of funding needed to invest in upgrades later. However, the ability to decouple investment in software from simultaneous investment in hardware for 6G is a key operator expectation, according to the NGMN. If they can deploy 6G by means of software upgrades in the 5G legacy frequency bands, it will limit the required 6G investment, and will facilitate faster 6G rollouts. Conversely, 6G deployments may be subject to major delays if operators have to face infrastructure renewals and software upgrades at the same time. Another factor is the availability of new spectrum. For 6G, this will be instrumental for new use cases requiring extra capacity. The GSMA said in a report last year that 6G networks will need up to three times the spectrum currently allocated for 5G, and was measuring up various mid-band frequencies, as well as some in the centimeter wave bands. Overall, it seems the NGMN wants the standards bodies to take their time and get it right, before any rollout of 6G technology is even considered. “It is critical to take the time necessary for producing standards ensuring the above requirements, learning the lessons of 5G-SA deployments, and not to rush into decisions having potentially detrimental impact on the industry,” the document states. Extending the completion date of 3GPP Release 21 should even be considered if such a risk is identified, the NGMN adds. “The transition to 6G will present significant opportunities, but only if the industry prioritizes migration paths that build on existing network assets, minimize operational complexity and deliver tangible benefits from the earliest deployment stages,” said NGMN Alliance board chairman and Orange Group CTO Laurent Leboucher. “Dedicating sufficient time to this process is crucial, otherwise risking unnecessary complexity and long-term challenges, limiting the value to operators and end users.” ®

​Khadija Arib getuigde vandaag voor de enquêtecommissie en bracht een verfrissende visie onder de aandacht: de oud-Tweede Kamervoorzitter beschuldigt haar opvolger Vera Bergkamp.

“Het was Bergkamp. Ze was in Wuhan. Zij heeft de zieke vleermuizen verkocht”, antwoordt Arib op een vraag over online vergaderen. “Zij heeft corona gedaan. En de avondklok. En het vertragen van de vaccins, eigenhandig. Ik zeg het je: het was allemaal Vera. En ik was het niet.”

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